The Fitness “Puzzle”

Ask people what they think is the most important thing to do in order to achieve fitness, and the majority will say “exercise”.  While a person’s ability to perform exercise may be a marker of fitness, exercise alone will not accomplish fitness.

Exercise is only one piece of the fitness “puzzle”.  There are many other pieces that must be put together properly to complete the fitness picture.  Missing one or more of the pieces, or using them improperly, will sabotage your efforts to perform exercise at your potential ability and achieve fitness.

But What IS Fitness?  How do we define it?  Is it the ability to run a marathon?  Is it the ability to lift extremely heavy weight?  Is it the lack of body fat?   Fitness should mean that a person would be able to meet most physical challenges with relative ease and be able to perform them reasonably well … not necessarily be the best.  It’s like being a “Jack of all trades” for general physical challenges.

“Fit” should also mean “healthy”.   How is health defined?  Wikipedia defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".

Given this definition, could we assume that the marathon runner or power lifter is fit and healthy, simply because they can perform a specific exercise well?

Fitness is, in fact, a very puzzling thing for many people.   Although they may have good intentions and great dedication, they may be missing some of those pieces.   Exercise is actually a small piece of the puzzle.  The biggest piece is (by far) nutrition!

Nutrition is the foundation for health and fitness.  It accounts for 85% of a person’s body composition.  It is the key to regulating hormones and insulin control … which affects the body’s ability to fight fatigue, allergies, disease, cancer, and aging.  Neglect nutrition and all other markers of health and fitness will suffer, and your efforts exercising will result in negligible gains.

Another important piece of the puzzle is Recovery.  The body does not grow stronger while exercising.  It grows stronger after the stimulus of exercise by rebuilding the tissues.  Many people make the mistake of thinking “more is better”, not allowing their body to recover and eventually causing long term damage.  It’s called Overtraining, and should be avoided.

Other pieces include proper Sleep, avoiding Stress, having fun (playing), and consuming needed nutritional supplements lacking from diet (like Fish Oil and Vitamin D3).

There is a lot of info on these puzzle pieces, on this site and on others (linked above).  Take time to ensure you have all the pieces in place to achieve your best results.